Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor and informally as Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th-century buildings on Staten Island, New York City. The buildings are set in an park along the Kill Van Kull in New Brighton, on the North Shore of Staten Island. Some of the buildings and the grounds are used by arts organizations under the umbrella of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.
Sailors' Snug Harbor was founded as a retirement home for sailors after Captain Robert Richard Randall bequeathed funds for that purpose upon his 1801 death. Snug Harbor opened in 1833 as a sailors' retirement home located within what is now Building C, and additional structures were built on the grounds in later years. The buildings became a cultural center after the sailors' home moved away in 1976. The grounds and buildings are operated by Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, a nonprofit, Smithsonian-affiliated organization.
Sailors' Snug Harbor includes 26 Greek Revival, Beaux Arts, Italianate and Victorian style buildings. Among those are "Temple Row", five interlocking Greek Revival buildings labeled A through E. The buildings are set in extensive, landscaped grounds, surrounded by the 19th-century cast-iron fence. The grounds also include a chapel and a sailors' cemetery. The cultural center includes the Staten Island Botanical Garden, the Staten Island Children's Museum, the Staten Island Museum, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, and the Noble Maritime Collection, as well as the Art Lab and the Music Hall.
The site is considered Staten Island's "crown jewel" and "an incomparable remnant of New York's 19th-century seafaring past." It is a National Historic Landmark District. Several buildings in the complex are New York City designated landmarks.
History
Creation
Snug Harbor was founded through a bequest after the 1801 death of Revolutionary War soldier and ship master Captain Robert Richard Randall, namesake of the nearby neighborhood of Randall Manor. In his will, Randall left his country estate in Manhattan, bounded by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, 10th Street, and the southern side of 8th Street in present-day Greenwich Village, to build an institution to care for "aged, decrepit and worn-out" seamen.
The first meeting of the corporation of Sailors’ Snug Harbor took place in 1806. In its first election, then-Mayor DeWitt Clinton was elected president. Several challenges to Randall's will took place; one by a Stephen Brown who alleged that Randall failed as executor of the estate of his grandfather in New Jersey from which the Randall estate was derived, and one from Anglican Bishop John Inglis of Nova Scotia who alleged he was a proper collateral heir through his common ancestor John Crooke. The corporation was ironically legally represented by Thomas Addis Emmet, a former member of the Society of United Irishmen, an organization inspired by the success of the American Revolution to fight the British in Ireland. Future President Martin Van Buren also served on the defense team, and Daniel Webster provided counsel to the plaintiffs.
By the time the will challenge was settled, the once-rural land around the Manhattan estate had become well-developed. Snug Harbor's trustees (appointed by Randall's will, they included the mayor of New York City, the president and vice president of the Marine Society, senior ministers of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and the chancellor of the State) decided to maximize the profits on the Manhattan property. They changed the proposed site of the institution to another piece of land bequeathed by Randall: a 130-acre plot on Staten Island overlooking the Kill Van Kull. The land was purchased in May 1831.
Sailors' home
The institution began with a single building, now the centerpiece in the row of five Greek Revival temple-like buildings on the New Brighton waterfront. The first building, now building C, was the first known work to be designed by Minard Lafever and completed in August 1833. When Sailors' Snug Harbor opened with the completion of building C, it became the country's first home for retired merchant seamen. The residents were referred to as "inmates" in the parlance of the day.